Best Password Cracking Tools by Shawn Abraham

Introduction

No matter how great and strong a password is that someone uses, there is always a way to crack it. Even though many people think differently, cracking passwords is something that happens quite a lot nowadays.  The most common mistake people make, actually, is storing a password somewhere on their device, which is totally wrong. Anyhow, there are some tools that can easily crack anyone’s password, no matter the strength. And, we are going to talk about them now.

Consider these Things for your Password

Some of the most important things that you need to know when creating a password are:

• Creative Words
• Unique Word Placement
• Numbers
• Upper and Lower case Words
• Use Symbols
• Never use the same Password as your Username
• Never use Key Strokes Adjacent to Each Other like ‘’qwerty’’
• Never Store Passwords in your Device
• Never use your Personal Stuff for Password like Birthday
• Use different Passwords for other websites

The Priority of a Strong Password

As we all know, there are some industries where you absolutely need a strong password. However, these industries are highly targeted by cybercriminals who use password cracking tools.

• Finance and Banking
• Social Media Accounts
• Military (and espionage)
• Corporate Accounts
• Telecommunication

Cyber-security types of Attack

There are many different types of attacks when it comes to cyber-security, and the ones that we are going to discuss are actually targeting passwords. So, let’s see.

Brute Force Attack

This is one of the most basic attacks when it comes to cracking a password. Simply speaking, a hacker is trying every possible combination of characters in order to crack the password. And, this usually takes a lot of time.

But, there are some difficulties that occur when this type of attack is performed. Namely, most of the websites have a specified number of times that you are allowed to enter a password incorrectly. However, a Brute Force attack goes a bit further and makes certain assumptions that ease the whole process of cracking a password.

Dictionary Attack

This type of attack is based on a list of options to choose from. Only options that are very likely to work are selected and tried. So, this means that a Dictionary attack is simply relying on a couple of options that are trustworthy.

But, how are these ‘’likely to work’’ options selected? Well, these are combinations that are based on some possible values that might be a password. This means that these options are, for example, names of a family member, their birth dates, and so on.

Therefore, this attack is either working fast, or it doesn’t work at all since the list of possible options is not that long. Anyhow, a Dictionary attack is not a reliable choice if the password is strong and irrelevant to the person.

Rainbow Table

Rainbow table is a very unique type of attack that targets only a possible group of characters. So, this technique is quite good when it comes to recovering plaintext passwords or debit card numbers. On the other hand, this can work only up to a limited length of characters, so, it’s not that effective for cracking long and strong passwords.

But, this is a fast-working type of attack that is effective most of the time. Simply, it’s faster than a Brute Force attack, but it lacks efficiency when it comes to long passwords.

Best Password Cracking Tools – Know your Game

• Brutus

Brutus is one of the most common tools when it comes to cracking a password. Some people claim that this tool is one of the quickest ways to crack someone’s password. Also, it only works on Windows operating systems.

Now, anyone who uses this tool has a variety of options to choose from. Even if you want, you can create your own type of authentication. But, the best thing about Brutus is that it supports lots of different engines and programs. This means that you can use this tool to crack almost any password.

• Rainbow Crack

Next, we have a Rainbow Crack password cracking tool. Namely, this tool is faster than Brutus and it focuses more on a time-memory trade-off process to ensure success. Anyhow, time and memory trade-off process is working in a way where all plain text and hash pairs are calculated by a special algorithm.

The results of that process are stored in the rainbow table so this tool usually takes a lot of time to crack a password. But, when it comes to field of the performance, RainbowCrack is a bit better than Brutus. This tool works perfectly not only on Windows but also on Linux.

• Wfuzz

Similar to Brute, this is a tool that cracks passwords with the use of brute force. This means that you can use this tool to find hidden resources, scripts, and so on. This is a web application, so it doesn’t need any type of installing and it doesn’t create any complications about that.

• Cain and Abel

This one is one of the most popular cracking tools for passwords. Namely, Cain and Abel is a tool that uses a dictionary type of attack that can be used only on Windows platforms. Besides that, the fields where this tool excels the most are:

• Uncovering cached passwords
• Decoding scrambled passwords
• Brute attacks
• Recording VoIP conversations
• Password boxes revelation

As we can see, Cain and Abel is one of the most versatile tools for cracking passwords.

• John the Ripper

Here we have yet another popular tool for cracking passwords. Simply put, John the Ripper (catchy name) is a password cracking tool that works perfectly on Linux, Mac OS X, and Unix. Also, there is a version that supports Windows as well.

Now, this tool is super effective for detecting weak passwords, but, it doesn’t excel that great when it comes to a bit stronger passwords.

• THC Hydra

THC Hydra is definitely the fastest tool for cracking passwords. This tool offers some really good features that directly contribute to its overall performance and speed of cracking. On the other hand, this tool supports Windows, Free BSD, Linux, Solaris, and even OS X.

That being said, THC Hydra really stands out when it comes to versatility and speed. Not to mention that this tool easily supports a large number of network protocols as well.

• Medusa

As we advance further into the discussion about the password cracking tools, we come across Medusa. Now, Medusa is basically very similar to THC Hydra and it works really fast. Some of the things that Medusa is known for are long brute forcing, speedy parallel and modular forcing.

However, this is a very efficient tool since it is capable of testing 2000 passwords per minute. Also, it can allow you to crack multiple passwords simultaneously, which is considered to be a big advantage.

• OphCrack

This is a rainbow-table based tool that is capable of cracking passwords on Windows. Also, OphCrack tool can be used for cracking passwords on Linux or Mac, but it works best on Windows. Now, as we mentioned before, the whole concept of cracking is based on a rainbow-table.

Therefore, this tool doesn’t take much time to achieve success and it can be used to crack even the strongest passwords.

• L0phtCrack

As you might suspect from the name, this is a substitute for OphCrack tool. However, L0phtCrack tool cracks Windows passwords from hashes. Simply speaking, this tool uses controllers of domain, workstation, and any other relevant thing that can be used to crack a password.

Therefore, this tool is based on a dictionary attack type and it takes a bit more time than OphCrack tool. But, it delivers better success when it comes to large and difficult passwords.

• Aircrack-NG

This tool is mostly used to crack WiFi passwords that are based on WPA or WEP passwords. So, this means that AirCrack-NG is definitely the best wireless encrypted tool that uses algorithms to crack passwords.

It is compatible with Windows and Linux operating systems and it doesn’t take much time to crack a password. Therefore, AirCrack-NG is quite a tool for cracking WiFi passwords.

Conclusion

As we can see, cracking passwords is possible with the right kind of tool. And, we have discussed some of the best tools for doing so that are highly recommended by the majority of hackers.

Anyhow, these are the tools. Now, it’s up to you to choose which one to use.

About the Author:

Shawn Abraham is a cyber security expert working as a content writer for MalwareFox.